Fifa 14 ousts GTA V from UK number one but sales down 24%

Grand Theft Auto V has lasted only one week at the top of the UK sales charts, but Fifa 14 has come nowhere close to equalling last year’s sales.

The drop in sales for Fifa 14 could be due to a number of different reasons, not least the fact that GTA V has already taken a significant chunk of everyone’s time and finances. FIFA 14 also had a less euphoric critical reception than usual, but the main issue is likely to be indecision over the next generation consoles.

This is an issue Activision has already spoken about with Call Of Duty: Ghosts, whose pre-orders are well down on usual because people aren’t sure whether they’ll buy it on current gen consoles or the Xbox One or PlayStation 4.

Whatever the reason, although Fifa 14 is now the new number one (in the all formats chart at least, as usual the individual formats chart takes longer to be released) it came nowhere close to matching Fifa 13’s record-breaking first week.

It is however one of only three games to release on eight formats at the same time, the others being Fifa 13 and 2006’s Need For Speed: Carbon. If only there’d been a Wii U version EA could’ve made it nine formats…

Sales for GTA V dropped by 83 per cent in its second week, which if it was its first week would still have made the game the 18th biggest opening of all time.

A few niche games did release at the same time last Friday but Disgaea D2 and Armored Core: Verdict Day didn’t make it into the top 20, although we’ll see if either managed to get into the top 40 when that’s released.

This Friday sees the release of Codemasters’ F1 2013 (360/PS3/PC), as well as Just Dance 2014 (Wii/Kinect/Move/Wii U), and The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD (Wii U).

However, given the launch of GTA Online this week it wouldn’t be at all surprising if GTA V reclaimed the top spot as a result.

[Update: The top 40 and the individual format chart are now in, but Fifa 14 was still the only new entry in both. Outside the top 10 the PC version of Fifa 14 debuted at number 16, with the Wii version at 17, and the PS Vita at 18.]